2009 Annual ALA Conference - ALSO Member Easter Digangi's report on the Interlibrary Loan Update

During the conference I attended two programs on the subject of Interlibrary loan both of which were sponsored by RUSA-STARS.

1. Interlibrary Loan Discussion Group

The event covered a five point agenda. First, elections were held for the Chair of RUSA STARS. Both nominees, Paul B. Drake from McNeese State University and Megan Gaffney from University of Delaware, made short speeches pointing out their qualifications and enthusiasm.

Second, everyone was introduced to Neil Romanosky, the 2009-2010 Chair.

Third, Tina Baich from IUPUI presented the results of an international interlibrary loan survey.

A. Demographics:

The survey participants by library type in decreasing order were: College/University, Medical, Special, Public, Law, and State.

B. Lending/Borrowing:

Interestingly, the top 3 lending countries were also in the top 3 for borrowing. These countries were Canada, Australia, and Great Britain.

Additionally, the formats that libraries were unable/unwilling to lend and borrow were identical. These included a/v, books over 100 years old, special collections, serials, microforms, and local theses/dissertations.

C. Bibliographic verification:

The top three bibliographic verification tools used in decreasing order were: OCLC/Worldcat, Library Catalogs, and Internet/Google.

The majority of libraries routinely verified bibliographic information. However, 20% verified only “when possible” and 9% never verified bibliographic information. This is some-what disturbing especially coming from libraries.

D. Referral:

When a library doesn't own requested material only 40% refer to another library, 19% refer as time allows, and 41% do not refer at all.

E. Returnable vs. nonreturnable materials

Generally speaking, the majority of libraries borrow & lend fewer than 5,000 returnable materials and nonreturnable materials.

Specifically for international interlibrary loan, the results suggest that the majority of libraries lend and borrow both returnable and non-returnable materials to/from libraries.

F. Payment & Shipping

OCLC IFM was the most popular payment method for both lending and borrowing in the US.

This method is problematic for international ILL because of a variety of payment issues such as currency conversion, wire transfers, and ability to pay in foreign currency.

However, these issues are being avoided by reciprocal agreements such as matching costs.

USPS was the most commonly used shipping method.

This is interesting because there is so much fear of loss with this method.

G. Findings

The complexity of cross-border payments discourages libraries from participating in international ILL.

Many of those who participate in international ILL prefer providing or requesting non-returnables only to avoid costs or risks. Electronic delivery in particular is one way libraries avoid these problems.

Perceptions of ILL has not changed in the past 10 years.

H. Suggestions

Tools should be developed and publicized for locating non-English language materials.

Guidelines or standards should be developed to assist in negotiating with an international holding library.

Libraries, both domestic & international, should be encouraged to keep their profiles current within the Policy Directory for OCLC ILL.

According to the survey, 52% of libraries were uncertain as to whether or not they were listed as a lender.

It was suggested that the committee should work with OCLC to get international ILL participants listed (e-mail addresses, etc.).

Awareness should be raised about packaging guidelines.

I. Upcoming Committee Work

The executive summary is available on the RUSA STARS website and will appear in RUSQ From the Committees section of Fall 2009 issue.

Supply Conference in Hannover, Germany, there will be a presentation entitled, “Global ILL: Examining Issues and Seeking Collaboration”. RUSA STARS representative will be David Atkins of University of Tennessee.

Fourth, the results of the election were announced. It was close, but Megan Gaffney won the chair position.

Fifth, there was time for discussion of issues people were having. Someone asked if there was a way to get LVIS to speed up. Some people discussed what they were doing to cut costs in these difficult economic times. One solution was to streamline the process more. Another solution discussed was to extend loan periods. Yet another person said they they used defections to cut down on processing loads. In this discussion ILLiad did come up. Many people had good things to say about this product. However, in my one-on-one discussions I got the impression that unless your work load was kinda big this doesn't help much. I asked about ILL in public libraries. An informal poll was taken of Public Library librarians present and they was only 3 out of 50 or more people. Some of these people said that cost was a really big barrier and there wasn't that same organizational discussion/support in ALA for ILL in public libraries (no ILL group in PLA). Someone asked about stats. OCLC does keep stats for all ILL requests, even those not filled. Someone suggested Cleo to keep stats of just the filled ILL requests.

2. Resource Sharing in the 21st Century: Beyond Books and Journals

There were three speakers:

·Maureen O'Brien Dermott discribed an experiment with using Netflix as an interlibrary loan tool to provide popular videos to her patrons. The advantage was that the fill rate was high and the turn around time was fast. However Netflix changed their rules so libraries can't do this anymore.

·Carolyn Morris discussed the possibility of licensing e-books for interlibrary loan.

·Kyle Banerjee discussed Orbis Cascade Alliance & WorldCat Navigator. WorldCat Navigator hosts a resource sharing platform (not an ILS). It's special because: it has consortia borrowing support, all requests are made through one form, circulation gateway allows NRE (Navigator Request Engine) to "talk" to your local ILS when standards based protocals are not supported, and it is hosted at OCLC.
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Further Reading
Wisconsin DPI ILL FAQ's

Interlibrary Loan Code